In recent years, the push for both industry and individuals to be more environmentally aware has led to many green initiatives including green roofs and green walls. Currently in cities such as Chicago, over 2.5 million square feet of the downtown core roof space are covered with hardy green roof plants. Green walls and roofs provide savings on insulation and place less load bearing strain on a building. In addition, plants being carbon producers, the use of green walls and roofs are thought to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Further still, these green walls and roofs act to offset the newly identified ‘urban heat island effect’ where the heat-absorbing surfaces in a city raise its temperature to as much as 8 degrees higher than that of the surrounding countryside.
However, green walls currently known in the art have their own unique set of challenges associated with them, the first being gravity. In conventional methods of greening buildings, it is well known to cover wall surfaces with ivy or to plant trees into the soil deposited on wall surfaces. One of the early green walls disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,257,476 requires preparation of a plurality of bags loaded with soil, piling the bags against a wall surface of a building and inserting trees' roots between the piled bags so as to plant trees, erecting a lattice fence outside the stacked bags, and promoting the plants growth and clinging to the lattice.
In more recent years, seeding and planting panels have been used for greening surfaces of permanent constructions such as buildings, retaining walls, and the like. These seeding and planting panels generally include a panel frame, and a seeding and planting mat or block contained within the frame. In general, these types of panel frames are fixedly secured to surfaces of existing constructions such as building wall surfaces, roofs or retaining walls, and are integrally incorporated into the constructions so as to be permanent structural elements thereof. It is very cumbersome to exchange these panels as they are not easily disengaged from their supports and removed. In addition, as the backside faces of the panels are concealed, general maintenance work is very difficult.
By way of example, the following are offered as known types of green wall technologies.
Japanese Pat. Appl. Pub. No. 2004-254565 refers to:                “The greening panel 100 is composed of a panel frame 10 installed on the vertical plane side with a support frame and forming a work opening enabling planting at least a pot seedling at least on a front face, a bag-like mat material 20A arranged and supported just in the inside of the panel frame 10, enabling cut open work from the outside of the work opening and having water absorption properties and restoring force, and a vegetation base material 30 for raising a vegetation plant P, filled in the inside of the bag-like mat material 20A or a three-dimensional netlike mat filled with the base material. A support frame is composed of many metallic linear support pipes, pipe-connecting members connecting the ends of the pipes with each other and hanging tools connected to part of the panel frame 10 and hanging the panel frame 10 on the support pipes.” (Abstract)        
Japanese Pat. Appl. Pub. No. 2003-155714 refers to:                “The greening panel device 1 is provided with upper and lower greening panels 3 and 5, right and left vertical members 11 and 11 fixed to a wall 7 by vertical member fixtures 9, and panel fixtures 13 for attaching each greening panel 3 and 5 in parallel across the right and left vertical members 11 and 11. The panel fixtures obliquely attach each greening panel 3 and 5 so that a lower part protrudes forward than an upper part, and water receptors 15 guiding received water to the lower greening panel are detachably provided on lower faces of the panel fixtures 13.” (Abstract)        
Japanese Pat. Appl. Pub. No. 2004-248550 refers to:                “This device 10 for greening a wall surface has a plurality of planting units 12 arranged along an external wall surface 4 of a building 2 and planted with plants 14. Each of the planting units 12 is hung sequentially from the top through hanging members 16 to be connected with each other. The planting unit 12 on the top is fixed to a parapet 7 on a rooftop 6 of the building 2 with a wire 18. The rooftop 6 of the building 2 is set with a lifting and lowering device 30 for lifting and lowering the planting units 12 through drawing and rolling the wire 18.” (Abstract)        
U.S. Pat. No. 5,579,603 describes:                “A plant-growing method for greening upright or slant wall surface is disclosed. A flexible bag is first prepared including a plurality of compartments sequentially juxtaposed in the direction of the overall length of the bag. The compartments are each provided with a plurality of openings communicating with the exterior. Soil is then loaded through the openings into the compartments with the bag being horizontally laid. Afterwards, trees are planted through the openings into the compartments. Thereupon, the bag which has been planted with the trees is suspended along the wall surface in the direction of the overall length of the bag while allowing trunks of the trees to be exposed through the openings. Water is thereafter supplied into the compartments of the bag to promote the growth of the trees.” (Abstract)        
United States Pat. Appl. Pub. No. 2007/0199241A1 refers to:                “A light self-supporting vegetated wall includes globally prismatic boxes, designed to be juxtaposed and/or stacked, the adjacent boxes being assembled together. Each box includes latticed or meshed surfaces, lined internally with a web, and filled with a cultivating substrate, such as humus. A network of water pipes and a network of air vents may be incorporated in the thickness of the structure, these networks passing through the parting lines between the boxes. The structure is designed for urban enhancement, as well as for producing noise screens, partition walls, hoardings and the like.” (Abstract)        
U.S. Pat. No. 4,658,541 describes interlocking semi-circular planters wherein plants are individually contained in each discrete planter and wherein the back walls are formed with teeth and notches for interconnection with other semi-circular planters on a wall.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,536,829 describes a planting base for use on walls and roofs comprising a holding cover having an open window divided by a holding cross-piece and a tray for supporting the holding cover and for receiving culture soil with which the holding cover is filled.
There remains the need for a simple green wall system which would allow easy installation and removal and easy replacement of plants, while at the same time providing optimal conditions for plant growth. It is an object of the present invention to obviate or mitigate the above-noted disadvantages.
Thus, a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art systems, designs, and processes as discussed above.